Where and how did Christmas start?

Christmas Beginnings

Religious historians attribute Dec. 25th being designated as Christmas to Pope Julius I, sometime in the 4th century A.D. It was set to coincide with the Roman Winter Festivals.

Read on for more information from WikiAnswers contributors:

• That is the most basic, but actually the most complex, question for a Christmas FAQ, I suppose!

The truth is complicated, and it depends upon what tradition you're referring to as "Christmas." "Christmas" as "Christ's Mass," the celebration of Christ's birthday, originated when the Roman Catholic Church decided to concecrate pagan traditions. The Church wanted to convert the pagans of Europe to Christianity, and as a way of doing so, they established a Christian religious meaning to the important and popular celebration of the winter solstice. They chose the birth of Christ because it echoed pagan attributes of the holiday, which celebrated, amongst other things, the rebirth of the Sun. ["rebirth of Sun"/"birth of Son," get it?]. The truth is that, before then, Christians didn't really celebrate Christ's birth; it was his death and resurrection that were supremely important, and his borth was a minor point without a fixed celebration.

It's certain that Jesus ''wasn't'' born on December 25. In fact, the details in the Bible clearly point to his being born in the spring. Placing the holiday of December 25 was a direct attempt to co-opt solstice traditions.

Christmas as a ''modern'' celebration, including most of the things we associate with it (Santa Claus, gift-giving, carols, egg nog, etc.), were a Victorian invention. A number of writers and politicians, including Clement C. Moore ("The Night Before Christmas"), popularized Christmas as a family tradition, in part to supplant undesirable older traditions that had become part of Christmas (including "misrule" traditions we now associate with Halloween!). For a detailed and fascinating account of the Victorian Christmas invention, read Stephen Nissenbaum's excellent "The Battle For Christmas."

As for individual Christmas traditions ... well, those are probably best answered as seperate FAQ answers.

• The following is what I have discovered in many old books in the State Library in Melbourne Australia.

Dec 25th was initially celebrated as 'Conquering the Sun Day', in which the Romans at the time, who worshipped the sun, thought the Sun God was pleased with them as the days started to get longer. They would have celebrations and exchange gifts. Those that believed in Jesus feared for their lives, and wanted to mark a day for his birth, and so did on the same day, under the guise of the Roman beliefs. So the birth of Jesus was celebrated around 460AD for the first time, and as the Church grew, it eventually took the day over for themselves.

Interesting.

• There is a wide spread theory that Christmas started in Rome as a response to the Pagan holiday that was celebrated around the Winter Solstice by Emperor Aurelian in AD 274, was called The Birth of the Invincible Sun.

• How can I find out why there are so many traditions in christmas?
• Where was the first Yankee Swap held?
• How can a large blue spruce Christmas tree be donated to the White House for Christmas or to another place like Time Square?